A Neuralink Patient Just Edited a Youtube Video With His Brain Signals
Brad Smith can’t move or speak. But last week, he posted a YouTube video that he edited himself, using only his brain. It’s a significant breakthrough that many with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) could only have dreamed of just a few years ago.
Smith is the first person with ALS to receive a Neuralink brain implant. It’s a brain-computer interface (BCI) developed by Elon Musk’s company, designed to let users control digital devices through neural signals alone. In Smith’s case, it allowed him to operate a mouse on his MacBook Pro, edit a video and narrate it in his own (AI-recreated) voice, despite having lost the ability to talk years ago.
The video, published on his YouTube channel, is likely the first to be edited entirely using Neuralink or any BCI. And it’s offering a rare look at how the experimental technology actually works in real life.
“I’m excited to get this in my head and stop using eye-gaze,” Smith says, speaking via a text-to-voice system, in the short video that included a FaceTime call with Musk.
“I hope this is a game changer for you and your family,” Musk replies.
Smith was diagnosed with ALS five years ago. ALS is a progressive disease with no current cure. It attacks a person’s motor neurons, the very cells that control muscle movement. As a result, as the disease progresses, patients gradually lose control of their own muscles, leaving them unable to do basic things like walk, eat, speak and eventually breathe on their own. Many countries still classify it as a terminal illness.
Before getting the Neuralink implant, Smith relied on eye-tracking software to communicate. It worked, but only in dark or low-light rooms. “Neuralink lets me communicate in any lighting and even outside,” he says in the video.
The chip itself is about the size of five stacked coins. It was surgically placed into Smith’s motor cortex and contains over 1,000 electrodes that read the electrical signals in his brain. While it’s not decoding his thoughts directly, the system picks up patterns when he imagines certain movements. That’s how Smith moves the cursor.
At first, he tried picturing his hand moving. But over time, he says he found it worked better when he thought about clenching his jaw or moving his tongue, actions he can no longer physically perform but can still mentally simulate.
In the video, he demonstrates how that mental control lets him highlight text, move files and trim video clips. It’s not fast, but it’s functional. “This is the first time I’ve edited anything in years,” he explains onscreen. “It took a lot of practice.”
The narration in the video isn’t read by someone else. It’s Smith’s own voice, or at least, a version of it that is electronic. Before losing his ability to speak, recordings were made of him reading aloud. Those were fed into AI software to synthesize a replica of his voice. He now types text using his brain and has the AI read it back in his old voice.
The result is personal and deeply human. At one point in the video, he shares how emotional the experience has been.
“It took years to get here, and I still break down and cry,” Smith told reporter Ashlee Vance, who documented the journey for his Substack Core Memory. “It is really nice to have a purpose greater than me. I am really excited to serve others in the future with this work.”
Smith is Neuralink’s third human patient, but he’s the first who is nonverbal and the first living with ALS. The company implanted its first chip last January in Noland Arbaugh, a quadriplegic who said it helped him regain a level of independence and build new social connections.
That first surgery marked the start of Neuralink’s clinical trials in humans, after years of animal testing, particularly in monkeys, and the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of initial human trials two years ago.
Musk has stated that Neuralink’s long-term goal is to expand their technology for medical use, arguing that if successful, it could achieve things that humans previously thought were impossible, such as restoring vision, treating paralysis and even integrating with AI to improve human thought.
But that view isn’t without controversy. Critics argue that the company’s ambitious timeline and limited transparency raise significant ethical questions about how the AI will be applied, and who it can be applied to. Neuralink was already fined in 2023 for mishandling hazardous materials and animal welfare advocates say the company isn’t clear about how it treated animals during testing. The technology itself isn’t available to the general public and even if approved, it would likely take several years to gain full regulatory approval in the U.S. For its part, the company has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
Still, for people like Smith, the immediate impact is tangible. He’s not just a test subject. He’s back to creating. In one clip from Vance’s documentary, Smith is seen playing “Mario Kart” with his kids using only his brain. The scene is both ordinary and remarkable.
“My kids are super excited that I can play games with them again,” he says.
Smith’s device is still experimental. For now, he’s working with Neuralink engineers who monitor his results and further refine the interface. But he says he’s hopeful that his experience can help others, especially those living with ALS or locked-in syndrome, eventually get access to the same tools.
“I feel lucky,” he says, “to be able to do this, and to show what’s possible.”
For now, Smith’s YouTube video is more than just a tech demo. It’s a quiet milestone and a glimmer of hope, showing what can happen when a brain is given a way to speak again.
